Wanstead fraudster who told the taxman he was jobless lived high life through £350k con

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Jonothan Jeremiah Piper, of Foxglove Gardens, Wanstead, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday (September 16) after admitting fraud charges last month.

The 30-year-old, who owned a firm called Embassy Wines UK Ltd and traded as a land and diamonds salesman, failed to pay tax for six years and of conned investors out of thousands of pounds.

HMRC investigators discovered Piper had been living the high life, driving luxury cars including a Bentley and a Range Rover, despite claims he was jobless and living with his parents.

Between 2008 and 2014, he pocketed more than £51,000 in undeclared Income Tax and National Insurance contributions, living in an expensive flat and splashing cash on hundreds of pairs of trainers.

Investigators learned Piper was also under investigation by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) after investors complained that they had been miss-sold expensive wine collections.

Many customers had either not received the wine they were promised or were deceived in respect of the expected returns.

Many investors were then persuaded to sell their wine collections to Piper’s company, but did not receive the promised payment.

An investigation by BEIS found that the self-professed fine-wine broker had not traded legitimately at all and had set up the company to simply con investors out of approximately £300,000.

John Cooper, of HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, said: “Piper was looking to make easy money and although he had no experience or qualifications, he set himself up as a high-quality trader in diamonds and then in expensive wines.

“He thought he was above the law, exploiting the tax system and conning unsuspecting investors out of thousands of pounds.”

Confiscation proceedings to recover the proceeds of his crimes are ongoing.